Still no flying

After yesterday’s deluge, it would have been a total waste of time checking the condition of Galinat because it would obviously have been right back at square one with the apron and ‘piste’ just oozing water. So with all such thoughts put to one side, it was left to me to consider the possibility of tidying up the garden a bit. While I’ve been cutting down and taking out the larger dead wood, I’ve been amassing a quantity of smaller stuff that isn’t suitable for burning on my wood burner, and most of that I’ve just been leaving in heaps on my grass. So if I wanted to cut the grass, I needed to shift all of that to where I can burn it at some time in the future, but I needed a dry day to be able to do that.

Although it rained overnight, it had stopped by this morning, so although showers had been forecast, I set to during the morning to try and do as much as I could before the rains returned. In fact, they stayed away all day, so I was able to get quite a bit done, including mowing both the front and back lawns and getting all of the waste wood piled up where it won’t get in the way. All in all, I was very pleased with what I was able to get done, especially cutting the grass, because it was just about at the limit of what even the new mower could handle.

But one thing didn’t happen as it should have today. I don’t know why, but as I’ve said on previous occasions, the French are totally hopeless at customer service and, to be truthful, organising almost anything, really. A week ago, I ordered a builder’s-type wheel barrow from Castorama so I can get cracking on the outside jobs I have lined up. I thought it was going to be delivered on Friday, which would have given them plenty of time from the despatch date that they had given me. But on Friday I got a call saying that it would be delivered on Monday, yesterday, but still no. This morning I got a call from the delivery company checking that I was home and saying that they would come with my parcel some time during today. But I’ve had too much experience of such things since I’ve been here to allow my hopes to rise, and sure enough, it was the same old story and my parcel didn’t arrive after all. Is it any wonder, I ask myself, that the French economy is in such dire straits when they seem to have so much trouble with the most simple of tasks that are a matter of routine in other countries. Answers on a postcard, please 😐